The media, including opinion writers, spent oodles of time and planet killing paper and energy writing about Haditha, Korans in toilets, soldiers peeing on dead Taliban bodies, loud music and cold temps at Gitmo, but can’t find it in themselves to write about the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, al Qaeda growing in Egypt and Libya, Fast and Furious, the Libyan 9/11 attack cover up, why Obama is using official White House resources for campaigning, and a host of other issues. The difference is the letter of Party affiliation. But, they can come out with stuff like this (via Ace)
Mitt Romney is worth $250 million. Why so little?
Mitt Romney is indisputably a very rich man. And if he is elected president on Nov. 6, he will become one of the wealthiest people ever to hold the office.
But exactly how wealthy is Romney? The figure that gets tossed around is $250 million in net worth — meaning the total value of his assets, financial and others, minus any debts.
It’s a big number, but frankly, it seems low. Given the industry in which he made his fortune (private equity), the era when he made it (the 1980s and 1990s) and the wealth of his peers in that business (mostly billionaires), Romney should be worth a good bit more than that.
Why isn’t he?
Then we get all sorts of gobbledygook (interestingly, that word is part of WordPress spellcheck, but spellcheck isn’t) as to why Romney should be richer but isn’t, finally getting to the point that Romney left Bain before the private equity market took off. And then we learn that a guy who gives over 30% of his income every year to charity is stingy
He has also been exceedingly charitable with his wealth, although unlike several of his private-equity peers, he has not signed the Giving Pledge, which would commit him to giving most of his fortune to philanthropic causes.
Facepalm, considering that Democrats are exceedingly stingy with their own money when it comes to charity (as opposed to being forthcoming with Other People’s money)
Does it really matter if Romney is worth $250 million, $1 billion or more? Rich is rich after all, right? I think it does, politically as well as substantively.
Politically, the alternatives are not great. If he were perceived as the first real billionaire to run for president, it would only exacerbate popular doubts about how someone living so removed from the concerns of average Americans — or even just 47 percent of them — could effectively represent them.
And if he is not a billionaire, doesn’t it suggest that he was not a great private-equity investor after all, thus torpedoing his claim to understand how to create jobs and get the economy back on track?
Something to keep in mind on Nov. 6.
Good f*cking grief. Romney’s damned if he does damned if he doesn’t. He took off to pursue saving the Olympics and then elected political positions, but, damnitall, he should have made more money. Or maybe spent his time agitating people and writing books like Obama, who’s done such a wonderful job with the economy and jobs.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
Read: Good Grief: Washington Post Complains That Romney Should Be Worth More »
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